Economic integration and the political economy of the environment in the Mekong River Basin.23 Philip Hirsch. The question of how economic integration and freer trade affects the environment is also receiving attention in Southeast Asia, one of the world's fastest growing regions. At the Jakarta workshop, researchers, government officials and representatives from international organizations gathered for a two-day discussion about the effects of economic integration on the environment in the region.
The objective was to gain insight into how ASEAN governments could respond to the daunting environmental policy challenges they will face in the coming years, while continuing to enjoy the economic benefits of improved regional and global economic integration. For the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is still considered that the Nordic countries are largely responsible. In the absence of political leadership, the strengthening of environmental legislation and the implementation and enforcement of regulations and standards where they exist are not guaranteed.
There is often a serious lack of trained personnel in the field where changes need to take place. However, experiences with the instrument in the region are still limited and the standards are far from uniform. Restricting free trade is not a viable option to encourage solutions to the region's growing environmental problems.
National sustainable development strategies and sectoral environmental policy plans are only as valuable as they are operationalized and implemented on the ground.
E CONOMIC I NTEGRATION AND
E NVIRONMENT IN S OUTHEAST A SIA
O PENING A DDRESS
Where environment-related measures are necessary, they must have been proven necessary and proportionate, taking into account the polluter pays principle and the precautionary principle. Such measures should be the least trade restrictive of all feasible environmental measures and they should be transparent, non-discriminatory and consistent with the principle of national treatment. Second, trade liberalization policies must be accompanied by a range of environmental measures to ensure that economies are sustainable in the long term.
Environmental policies must continue to address the root causes of environmental degradation through cost internalization. Intergovernmental cooperation should aim for upward convergence and mutual recognition of environmental standards and standard-setting criteria. The guiding principle should be that the extent of harmonization is limited by the different levels of economic development and the diversity of ecological conditions.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The links between economic integration and the environment are multifaceted and complex, and any policy measures used to address related problems cannot be easily dismissed as biased towards either the environment or free trade. Therefore, I would like to reiterate my appreciation to the organizers of the conference who have chosen to address the problems of economic integration and its impact on the environment. I believe that the work done here will be of great benefit not only to the participants, but more importantly to the policy-making process, and I hope that the findings of this workshop will have a positive impact on policy-making. process in Southeast Asia.
A BSTRACTS 3
The aim of the authors is to summarize and evaluate the debate on trade and environment in multilateral fora from an ASEAN perspective. In section 2, the author discusses the unique structure and process of GO–NGO peers and consensus building in relation to decision-making in the PCSD and especially in light of the ongoing formulation of the Philippine Agenda 21. The author examines the concept of sustainable development and examines how different institutions in Malaysia have responded to some of the Agenda 21 recommendations, adopted at UNCED.
Policy Reforms Aimed at Preserving the Philippines'. the remaining forests, including the flagship community forestry program, have created a gap in the supply needs of the local timber industry. But pressure from politicians can derail this flagship government program, as a case study of the largest community-based forest in the Philippines illustrates. Economic growth, if distributed equally at all levels of society, can have positive effects.
In the first part, the authors provide an overview of the techniques for estimating economic values of natural resource functions and services. In the second part, the authors present a case study on economic valuation of mangroves and the roles of local communities in conserving the resources. With environmental concerns at a new high, the traditional concept of the interrelationship between trade, investment and the environment in Thailand has changed tremendously.
In the first part of the paper, the author summarizes the discussion on the economic perspectives of AFTA and APEC for Vietnam. Sustainable development does not take into account the limits or carrying capacity of the environment, but also the participation of people in the development process. The role of people's participation in the determination of energy policy is key to the creation of a sustainable energy policy.
Clearly defined mechanisms are needed to ensure significant popular participation in the process that determines these policies. The author presents a study on the relationship between environment and development in Malaysia and how it influences the process of environmental policy development in the country. This is despite a history of interest in the basin's resources, a long-standing framework for regional cooperation in developing the Mekong River basin, and rapid economic growth in most riparian states.
The author discusses the environmental consequences of economic integration in the Mekong region with particular reference to the development of water and land resources in the basin. With a per capita income of less than US$200, Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world.
A BOUT THE P RESENTERS AND D ISCUSSANTS
LE Quy An is chairman of the Vietnam Association for the Protection of Nature and the Environment. LOTILLA is Deputy Director General of the National Economic and Development Authority of the Philippines. He currently serves as coordinator of the Philippine Sustainable Development Council and the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council.
NGUYEN Ngoc Tuan is Director of the Human Geography Research Center at the National Center for Social Services and Humanities (NCSSA) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Othman is a member of the Asia Society of Agricultural Economics and the local Malaysian Association of Agricultural Economics. Mari PANGESTU is the Head of the Department of Economic Affairs and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta.
In addition, she is a lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Indonesia and a lecturer at the Prasetiya Mulya College of Management in Jakarta. Euston QUAH is Acting Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. He was previously director of the Energy Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
Gurmit SINGH is Executive Director of the Center for Environment, Technology and Development (CETDEM) Malaysia. Hadi SOESASTRO is Executive Director and Member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Somsak SUKWONG is director of the Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC) at Kasetsart University, Thailand.
Charit TINGSABADH is director of the Center for Ecological Economics, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. TRAN Thi Thanh Phuong is the Deputy Director of the Planning and International Relations Department of the Vietnam Environmental Agency. Marites VITUG is a board member of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit news organization.
E NVIRONMENT IN S OUTHEAST A SIA
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Jakarta, Indonesia, 5-6 September 1996
A GENDA AND P ARTICIPANTS
PRESENTERS
Editorial Board, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Rizal Environmental Impact Assessments as Policy Tools Ms.
ROUND TABLES
ADDITIONAL PARTICIPANTS
AND C OOPERATION
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In early 1995, the IGCC joined the World Wide Web, providing not only text but also associated color photographs, maps, graphs, and other multimedia information to Internet users worldwide. IGCC online publications are now summarized and/or cross-indexed on dozens of related online services. As the "web" expands at a furious rate, with new sites being added daily, the net result of our electronic effort (cautiously estimated) has been a fivefold increase in the circulation of IGCC materials with no increase in cost - and no abandonment of printed mailings. to those who do not have access to the Internet.
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